John 13 is one of the most shocking, beautiful chapters in the Bible.
Unfortunately, it has also become one of the most abused and misunderstood chapters, as well.
There, Jesus famously girded Himself with a towel and washed His disciples’ feet to teach them that greatness comes through service, and that if their Master wasn’t above washing their feet, they had no grounds to see themselves as being above washing each other’s feet (13:12-17). It was also a ritual that brought them together, as those who had their feet washed were told they had a part together with Jesus (13:8)
It is truly incredible to see the Messiah, just hours before His betrayal, trial, and death, humble Himself in such a way. It’s no wonder the foot washing story remains such a compelling account.
Unfortunately, “Jesus washed feet” has been taken out of context and blown out of proportion. Now, Jesus’ foot washing has been taken as a sign that Christians should give acceptance and deference to all people at all costs.
The ‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl ad is the best distillation of what “Jesus washed feet” has become. Jesus wouldn’t be one of those meanies who protest abortion… He’d just wash the feet of the mom who wanted to kill her kid. Jesus wouldn’t care about immigration laws… He’d just wash their feet as they crossed the border.
The commercial ends by telling us that “JESUS DIDN’T TEACH HATE. HE WASHED FEET.” So, don’t oppose abortion or crime or LGBT causes or anything else, because that would be hate. Just wash feet.
Last week I was told that we should welcome the construction of mosques in America, that we shouldn’t have a problem with the new Narnia series turning Aslan—the story’s Christ-figure—into a female, and that husbands aren’t actually supposed to lead their households. What common argument held those points together? Each one appealed to “Jesus washed feet” for its Scriptural backing.
This is the skin-suit religion I’ve written about before. It dresses itself up in Christian lingo and appeals to Bible verses and accounts, but totally twists them to make a point the Bible never made. We have seen this before with “Don’t judge” and “Love your neighbor,” and now “Jesus washed feet” has entered the Bible-twisting lexicon.
There are reasons Jesus washed feet only once in His ministry instead of opening a three-year foot washing business.
When you actually look at the text, it’s not some “hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya” appeal to inclusiveness that trumps everything else said in Jesus’ ministry and in the Bible as a whole. Quite the opposite, actually.
Jesus didn’t wash feet to ignore truth.
If the Savior were living out the ‘He Gets Us’ commercial, He should have washed the feet of the woman at the well (John 4), the adulterous woman (John 8), Zacchaeus (Luke 19), the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7), and countless other social outcasts and “sinners.”
And yet… He didn’t. He washed feet once, at the end of His earthly ministry, and never did it again.
In fact, not only did He not wash those other people’s feet—He also did the kinds of things the He Gets Us folks would view as abhorrent.
He told the woman at the well her religion was wrong, and he called out her disastrous relationship situation.
He told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more—meaning He acknowledged her sin as sin.
He honored Zacchaeus’ emphasis on restitution.
And, He called the Syrophoenician woman a dog, and initially denied her request.
If foot washing is about making everybody feel welcome by not standing for truth, Jesus wasn’t that kind of foot washer. If it is about just being nice to people in hopes they’ll respond with a desire to obey, Jesus wasn’t that kind of foot washer, either.
Foot washing isn’t about being nice to people. Yes, we should treat them lovingly, but inclusiveness, especially at the expense of truth, is not the point of foot washing at all.
The right way to see it:
Jesus washed feet to make a point that His apostles needed to learn. When He met all the other people just mentioned, He taught, reproved, encouraged, and/or rebuked them, because that was what they needed to learn. In fact, in the days before washing feet in the upper room, He had been going toe-to-toe with the Pharisees, pronouncing woes on them and telling parables to predict their doom… because that’s what they needed to learn.
We do not have to pick between truth and love. Rather, we have to learn to discern the need of the moment, and have the courage and willingness to meet it, no matter how humbling the task may be.
Jesus didn’t wash feet to include everyone.
What has been turned into a message of inclusion was actually extremely exclusive. John 13 begins by highlighting Jesus’ special love for “His own who were in the world” (13:1). An incredibly small group of people received Jesus’ act of service, which is conveniently left out of the recent usage of the story.
Even Judas’ inclusion just further adds to the point of the camaraderie the foot washing was meant to establish. If Jesus washed everybody’s feet, it wouldn’t be shocking if somebody betrayed Him with clean feet. Judas violated a precious bond that Jesus only shared with a select few men.
The right way to see it:
“Jesus washed feet” was aimed to teach His apostles how to view each other. It was such an exclusive lesson because those men who received it were going to be handed the baton of the kingdom, and their unity was going to be crucial to its success (John 17:20-23).
So, Christians are not to jockey for status with each other, as the apostles had repeatedly done. Rather, they were to serve one another and love one another with the sacrificial love of Christ (13:34-35), because the world was going to hate them (15:19).
So, the Christian’s love for, service for, and attitude toward each other is to transcend what we give anyone else. We were told to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39)… but we were told to love our brethren as Christ loved us.
Jesus died for the world, but He only washed His closest disciples’ feet. In the same way, we are to serve the world, but we are to give even greater love and service to the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). The message isn’t “make everybody comfortable.” It’s “never think yourself above your fellow Christian.”
Jesus didn’t abandon authority to wash feet.
The thing that makes His act so shocking is that He was, and continued to be, their Teacher and Lord (13:13-14). This was not His way of setting up the “Awww shucks, who me?” style of leadership that’s so praised today.
For example, in a recent Think Deeper episode, we discussed the division of labor in the home. When we noted that such a division is going to lead to an imbalance of duties, and that the wife who is a homemaker is going to do more dishes than the husband who is away working the 9-5 (or more), the shrieking started.
Paraphrasing, the response went something like, “Oh, you think you’re above doing dishes? Well Jesus washed feet! You’re supposed to be a servant leader like Him!”
Does John 13 demand that husbands do just as many dishes or other household chores as wives? Similarly, does it demand church leaders bend to the wishes of the congregation? Is that the kind of thing the passage is teaching?
The right way to see it:
Interestingly, we have a pretty clear answer not too far along in the text.
In Acts 6, the apostles—the very men who had received the Savior’s foot washing—had to deal with the challenge of fair bread distribution among the congregation. So, they went out and started serving bread, right?
Quite the opposite, actually. “Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables” (Acts 6:2 KJV).
Wisdom dictated that they appoint other men to serve the bread so they themselves could continue teaching. In other words, they served and led by not serving in that particular way.
Did they already forget Jesus’ message? Of course not. They understood what moderns seem to miss: serving doesn’t mean doing what people want you to do. Serving means doing what needs to be done to accomplish God’s task for you.
Even in John 13 we see this principle, as Peter attempted to decline the foot washing. Jesus did not “servant lead” Peter and acquiesce to the man’s wishes. As Lord, He set a boundary and demanded Peter accept it, or be left out of Jesus’ number (13:8).
Foot washing is about the humility Jesus requires us to use in our authority, not a call to stop using authority altogether.
Be careful with the text
“You also should do as I did to you” is not a universal command to go out and make everybody feel good about themselves. Nor is it a command to be whatever people want Christians to be. Nor was it a command to shut up about the truth because it might make somebody mad.
Rather, it was a command for those who would lead Christ’s people to do so with humility, emptying themselves of a desire to be exalted above others.
We have to sharpen our discernment, or else we’ll gullibly fall for every twisted Scripture someone throws at us. Yes, “Jesus washed feet.” But don’t make it mean more than what Jesus said.
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Notes
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Good thoughts, well written and presented.